amgreg

Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24463423

What I like most about some experienced engineers who have been at companies from the beginning is that they realize the needs of a small-team, cash-constrained, rapidly growing company are different from that of a dozens-of-teams, complex, but also rapidly scaling enterprise. The devil is in understanding when and how to transition your tooling, architecture, and — dare I say it — attitudes, from the one to the other.

I am curious to hear more from these engineers; how decisions were made about transitioning/scaling; and what decisions were made.

> Still alpha: spec is still alpha and it looks like it will remain like that since the intention is for spec2 to completely replace it in the future.

Out of curiosity for the folks in the know: why is this the state of affairs? Where we have the library in alpha for a long time, and being replaced already?

I think what the author would take issue with is this notion of “has to.” His point is that non-bank corporations can empirically create money (ie people will treat the IOUs as money), even if they may not be legally permitted to do so.

Bob Metcalfe, self professed “conservative hippie,” inventor of the Ethernet, founder of 3Com, of Xerox Parc fame, has this to offer:

> One of the few things that government should do is finance research, because — I have learned from many years — the only companies that can afford to do research are monopolies. Real companies cannot afford to do research other than monopolies. And there are some famous ones. The telephone monopoly — Bell Labs. The computer monopoly — Watson Labs. The copier monopoly — Xerox Parc. And on it goes. In retrospect the monopolies aren't worth it for the research they do. It's nauseating how much we hear about how cool Bell Labs was, but other than the transistor and Unix and the princess telephone, what did we get for all that money? And then for years AT&T as a monopoly sat on innovation — and IBM after that, and Xerox after that — it's just not worth it, so let's kill those monopolies. And if we need research, have it done at research universities. And the other spin I would offer there: as a practitioner of technological innovation, I worry about technology transfer — how do you get technology transferred from the lab into the marketplace. And the best way to do that is with people; and it is the business of universities to graduate people. So let's do our research there, and I think the ARPANet is a great example where government financed the research.

Source: https://youtu.be/zKz07DdaKzw?t=3772

> Some teams are happy to use Elixir to write web applications, to fit it into their pre-existing microservice deployment model. I urge developers to reach for those bigger thoughts that fault tolerant lighweight processes enable. You can consider each process a logical microservice, but you don’t need the friction of deploying it separately, and serializing to/from json, and containers, and orchestration, and distributed logging, et.al. You can deploy an entire system of millions of interacting logical microservices in a single BEAM release.

This resonates with me instinctually, but I’d love to learn more. What disadvantages would there be in jettisoning real microservices in favor of Erlang’s “logical microservices”?

The author explains the following, regarding Vitamin D studies:

> Most studies follow this pattern: Two sets of people are evaluated. One set has a certain disease (diabetes, for example). The other set does not have the disease. Vitamin D levels are measured in both groups. Vitamin D deficiency is found to be much more common in the group of diseased individuals.

If this is true, I wonder if most studies aren’t falling short for failing to control for Vitamin D deficiency. Couldn’t the studies be structured differently?

Let’s say we want to know the effects of Vitamin D on Covid. What if, instead of measuring Vitamin D deficiency in a group with the malady and a group without (analogous to what the author suggests most studies do):

We had two groups made up of Vitamin D deficient people. We gave the first group a Vitamin D supplement and the other a placebo. We then observed both groups out in the wild (ideally a place with a high R), measuring for infections. If the supplement folks were infected at significantly lower rates than placebo folks, wouldn’t this be better at demonstrating causation?

Open source vs closed source aside, why would one use Crux instead of Datomic?

Have you tried shadowcljs? Its default (:shadow) option is to use advanced optimizations only on your code; it will not run advanced optimizations in libraries but will include them minified. For me, this has struck a good balance and delivers consistently small and dependable bundles.

Thank you for this angle. This may have changed, but when I studied EU Law about eight years ago, the Parliament didn’t actually pass laws (despite the name) — I believe this was reserved for the Commission, who are unelected. If that’s right, how can we know if the Commission members who worked on this actually had a grasp of the technologies? (Real question, not rhetorical).

Has anyone here been involved in the lawmaking process? I’m curious to know whether the lawmakers had a good grasp of the technologies. I’ve always suspected the cookie law was written by a technocrat, clueless as to how the targeted technology actually works — but I’d love to be set right.

So comments actually work against it?

I’m curious to understand HN’s algo: Why has this thread, with over 1299 comments, decayed so quickly to the bottom of the 2nd page?

> I run a company, but I've found a way to do that with very few meetings and very little email. Most weeks I just have one meeting and many days I don't send a single email.

I'm very curious to know what your secret is!

Pardon my ignorance, but what is a Portal?

Interesting — did you just extend the round at the same price and identical terms?

I agree! How can we give this more visibility?

Agreed, the website loaded but the hamburger doesn’t do anything.

We ended up finding Novolin N at Walmart, before the Brazil solution, but our Dr. dissuaded us from switching.

You probably know this better than I, but the doctor advised us that Humulin N and Novolin N are not interchangeable; while they are the “same” insulin (NPH), the manufacturing process is different, affecting dosage.

In our pet’s case, the Dr. had conducted a series of exams to determine Humulin N dosages — which he advised us we would have needed to redo if we switched her to Novolin.

I think in humans it is easier to get blood readings, but in the dog’s case the Dr. needed to keep her in hospital to do a series of “curves;” this was expensive, so we did not want to redo.

Luckily I never had to take insulin, as I am not diabetic. I had a dog, however, who needed it. She was prescribed Humulin-N, which is not generic. The generic insulin would not be adequate for her, according to the vet.

When I got to the pharmacy, I was amazed to learn that it would cost us ~200 USD each time I needed a vial, which I would not be able to afford; I had pet insurance, but it wasn't any help.

I have family in Brazil. Identical medication is sold there for around 10 USD. By "identical" I mean exactly the same -- including brand name (Eli Lilly). Thus, every time a family member was coming to the USA, they'd bring me a few vials purchased from a local pharmacy that honored our US-issued prescription.

The price difference is shocking. I can only imagine the despair of many Americans who cannot afford the insulin they need and have no access to alternative markets such as I had.

Octane Lending | Product Managers, Software Engineers | NYC, Houston, Lund (Sweden) | ONSITE | https://octanelending.workable.com/

Come join Octane Lending and help launch our new product lines. We are building the next generation marketplace for powersports. Find the vehicle you want at a price you can trust and pay over time with the best financing options.

Backgrounds in marketplace businesses, retail, auto, or software engineering are highly prized.

Join us here: https://octanelending.workable.com/

Octane Lending | New York | Software Engineers | On-site - Full-time | $115,000-$160,000

Come join a fast-growing, venture-backed ($13M) fintech startup in New York City tackling the inefficiencies of consumer lending.

We're on AWS, with a Python (Django) app layer and modern JS.

We're looking for:

* Sr. Backend Engineers

* Sr. Frontend Engineers

* Sr. Full-stack Engineers

Apply at https://angel.co/octane-lending/ or directly to andre (at) octanelending.com.

Octane Lending, Inc. | New York | Senior Software Engineer | On-site - Full-time | VISA | $115,000-$160,000

ABOUT US

We build software that offers financing to consumers and helps merchants close deals. Our flagship product is a point-of-sale financing platform for niche consumer lending markets such as powersports and recreational vehicles. We have raised about $8M in venture capital and $25M in debt. Our management team hails from Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, and Penn and includes the former Chief Risk Officer for GE Capital Consumer.

WHO WE'RE LOOKING FOR

We are looking for experienced web developers with an ability to contribute to some or all of the following software development roles:

* JavaScript specialists for modern client-facing web development (a familiarity with the bleeding edge of web development is a plus).

* Python specialists or backend framework generalists (we run Django).

* Google Chrome Extension specialists.

* Backend and web development at scale.

* (Amazon Web Services and Unix specialists or infrastructure generalists.

* Security specialists.

OUR STACK

Linux, Python, Django, RabbitMQ, PostgreSQL, JavaScript (ES6), Google Chrome Extensions, etc.

QUALIFICATIONS

* 4+ years experience as a software developer building products for web and/or backend with possible focus on third-party integrations, systems security, information security, API development, JavaScript framework development, and modern software development practices.

* A college degree or equivalent experience in Computer Science or related fields with emphasis on a solid understanding of Computer Science fundamentals.

* Ability and desire to be productive independently while integrating into a closely knit team. We are a small, growing startup with a strong entrepreneurial spirit, and we value this in others.

* Experience with application, database, networking, and systems security, especially in the realm of PCI or EI3PA compliance a plus.

* Experience with modern testing practices and technologies such as unit testing in Python and Javascript, integration testing, Jenkins a plus.

* Experience with machine learning, data science, and predictive modeling a plus.

* Familiarity with our existing and future stack a plus.

* User experience (UX), graphics, and a mind for product are a plus.

Interested?

email Andre Gregori, Chief Product Officer. andre (at) octanelending.com

many if not most people input the www subdomain by rote. unless teller does not care about that category of people, it should probably fix the issue

The existence or not of a contract does not entirely determine whether a promise (e.g. to pay you $12,000) is legally enforceable. There may be other legal theories affording recovery. Therefore it is not entirely accurate to say that if you have an invalid contract with someone, "you can't sue [him] and [he] won't deliver." In many if not most cases you can sue and you may be able to recover.

onceburnt: This does not constitute legal advice, I am not representing you, and you are advised to consult a lawyer licensed to practice in your jurisdiction regarding this matter.

However, as a matter of general experience, I can tell you that, generally speaking, a company cannot rid itself of its obligations (liabilities) simply by selling itself to another company. Things like the type of entity of the debtor company (was it a corporation? a partnership? a sole proprietorship?) may determine who ultimately has to foot the bill, as well as the structure of the sale (e.g. the acquiror may have merged the target company into itself, which generally means it assumes the target company's liabilities; or the acquiror may have purchased only the target company's assets, leaving the liabilities behind with the company). These are questions your lawyer can help you figure out.

Independently of the question of liability, however, when a creditor has sufficient evidence to establish that it is owed a debt by someone, the burden generally shifts to that someone (to the alleged debtor) to show that he's free and clear of debt.

Bottomline: I would consult an attorney, and show him your correspondences with the company, including the correspondences with the purported acquiror. He will then decide against whom you should pursue your claim.